Train Wreck Lessons Not Learned

DELRAY BEACH -- The view of traffic from Goodman`s Auto Service looks like the ``don`t`` section of a driver`s handbook.

A parade of cars and trucks are squeezed into a blocklong stretch of Linton Boulevard east of Congress Avenue that includes an intersection, a railroad crossing and an Interstate 95 interchange.

One car is stopped squarely on the CSX Transportation railroad tracks. Others are dangerously close.

``What happened in Fort Lauderdale could happen here,`` said Mike Schaab, a mechanic at Goodman`s. ``The cars are on the tracks trying to push their way down the street.``.

It was the same scenario 30 miles south that were the ingredients of a collision between an Amtrak train and a Hess gasoline tanker truck on Cypress Creek Road in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday. The truck, trapped on the tracks, exploded, killing six people.

``It takes something like this to get people to think about the danger of what they are doing,`` said Bob Nurrenbern, who maintains CSX signals.

Traffic is particularly heavy on Linton, leading up to the tracks, with 40,000 vehicles traveling between Congress Avenue and I-95 on an average day, said Dan Weisberg, a county traffic engineer.

Part of the congestion is caused by southbound drivers turning left off Congress to go east on Linton, running the light and ending up stopped in the middle of the intersection, said Rebecca Mulcahy, a county signal engineer.

She said the county retimed the lights last month to improve the traffic flow.

In January, a family of seven had to bail out of a car trapped on the tracks as an Amtrak train approached. The train clipped the rear of the car, but no one was injured. The driver told police another car cut in front of him, trapping his car in the path of the train.

Nurrenbern, who was fixing the crossing gates on Linton Boulevard, surveyed the traffic on Thursday.

``Look, see what I mean?`` he said pointing to a midnight-blue Cadillac planted on the tracks. ``People just don`t abide by the law. What do they think the white line is for?``

A thick white line, called a stop bar, is painted about 30 feet from the track.

But here, less than 24 hours after the widely publicized Amtrak accident, was a car in the path of the next train to rumble through.

``You would think ...`` grumbled Nurrenbern as his greasy hands attached a new latch to the crossing gate.

Not everybody, though, has ignored the lesson.

When Shalonda Wilson, a Boynton Beach driver, sees the white line, she sees red -- the same color of a stop sign.

``Would I go across the tracks now? Not on your life,`` said Wilson. ``Not after seeing that train accident on television.``

Nurrenbern said when a train is approaching, the crossing red lights flash for about seven seconds, followed by the lowering of the gate, which takes about three seconds. The gates are timed to allow a train traveling 79 mph 30 seconds to arrive.

A fast-moving passenger train like Amtrak or Tri-Rail usually takes less than a minute to pass. The total time, from the train`s initial approach to its passage is about two minutes.

Is that too long to wait?

``You will have to ask some of these people,`` said Ernest Smith, a Boca Raton driver. ``They are so darned impatient.``